Hi Becky, welcome to the club! No one wants to join, but we have great parties!
I'm sorry this has all been so quick for you. The divorce part, however, needs to be thought of as a business deal - not a place to settle the emotional baggage.
His eagerness to get the divorce done may work in your favor if you can get him to agree to a favorable settlement; the longer things go on, the less generous they get.
As for selling the house - you are smart to wait until you have an agreement in place before doing that. The division of the proceeds from the house need to be calculated into other division of assets. For instance, one of you might want to trade house equity for an interest in the other's pension, etc.
Make sure you get good legal advice about the financial matters, and remember - your divorce attorney is not a financial expert, so while they may be able to tell you about fair division of assets, they may not be able to discuss tax ramifications of different decisions.
Check out wife dot org which has excellent financial information for women getting a divorce. Also think about the following: - don't be pushed into selling right away if it's not what you want to do. If this is your dream house and you fear you'll never be able to afford your own home again, it may pay to find a way to keep it. On the other hand, don't make yourself house poor, especially if you're not sure you'll stay in town or you don't want the upkeep.
- don't trade retirement assets for the house unless you are entirely secure on your own benefits.
- look at the tax ramifications of everything.
- I wish, in retrospect, that I had taken a lump sum instead of alimony in my divorce. It wasn't really possible, because our biggest asset was the house equity and ex wanted his share so he could purchase his dream beach cottage. But the bitterness that has been engendered by him having to write that alimony check every month has been extremely corrosive to any friendship we might have been able to develop post-divorce, and harmful to my adult children as well.
What is your financial situation like? Are your incomes comparable, or is there a big discrepancy? What assets are there to be divided?
And also - what would your dream future look like? Are there any ambitions you have put on hold during your marriage? Any crazy dreams you might want to pursue? (after my ex left, I took up playing the drums at the age of 53 and now I play in a punk rock cover band in my spare time:) )
Things have moved pretty fast in your sitch it sounds like, and there's no telling where things will go in the future, but take care of yourself financially through this process. (And no, he won't do any of the work, most of them don't because they want the "zipless divorce", just like the zipless f___ in Erica Jong's Fear of Flying.)
